My forehead tenses as images from that night flicker through my mind: Noah running after her, watching them from the roof, the empty hallway downstairs, the cobbled street, Khalid is arriving soon, the white car…

I can hear Noah’s voice in my head: ‘She just ran off and I went back up to the roof to look for you, but you were already gone.’

And now I’m thinking of his message, which came in on Saturday at 2.33 am. And his excuse: ‘I wanted to text you sooner, I just couldn’t find my phone… I didn’t know what to say. I knew you’d be pissed off.’

Then a flash of Monday night at the gallery. He was so keen to find me he tracked me down via Instagram. It mattered that much. An echo of Noah’s words: ‘I need you to promise me something. You won’t tell anyone about all this, about what happened on the roof.’

And then back to that message.

Two hours. He had two hours. I know what he said he was doing, but was he really sitting alone on that rooftop, contemplating life for two fucking hours?

My stomach twists.

My hands start to shake a little.

Then everything fades to silence.

Did Noah do this?

But he isn’t a killer. I’d know, wouldn’t I? I’d feel it. I’d sense something.

Still, things happen in the moment. One push. One slip. Another flash of that white car. Maybe that was his. Maybe he was driving her home and it all got heated and it just happened. He panicked. Dropped her body in that park near her home. Went back to the party and pretended it never happened.

I’m the only one who knows exactly what happened on that roof on Friday night. I’m the only one who knows why he ran after her. Because, if he killed her, he would have destroyed her phone, which means nobody would ever see that video. Nobody would know he had motive.

Nobody except me.

That’s why he came to talk to me.

He needed to sew his alibi in nice and tight. To make me believe him. So if anyone asked, I’d be a good little girl and corroborate his story. No, Officer, he couldn’t have been off killing Sabine because he was up on that rooftop looking for me. Yes, I’m certain. If he hadn’t gone back, how else could he have known I’d left?

Like it would never occur to me that Noah may have simply turned his head mid-argument and seen me make my way up those stairs.